


Artless

by elviaprose



Category: David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:29:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elviaprose/pseuds/elviaprose
Summary: Having begun a casual affair with Uriah, David finds himself frustrated by the layers of artifice that Uriah throws up to protect himself.  He has no hope of learning all of Uriah's secrets, but when he sees a chance at uncovering whether Uriah drops his aitches deliberately, he takes it.
Relationships: David Copperfield/Uriah Heep
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Artless

“Master Copperfield,” Uriah Heep sighed ecstatically, squeezing David Copperfield’s hand over and over in both of his own in something as much a cousin to a handshake as a gargoyle was cousin to a man. “I know I am running a little ahead of the clock. I am ever so sorry for it, and I hope you will condescend to forgive me when I say that I simply couldn’t wait another moment to come to you.” 

“Uriah,” David replied, flushing a little, knowing he’d spoken too warmly. By the time Uriah had done wringing his hand, David had found himself half hard in his trousers and shamefully eager to feel that hand elsewhere. “It’s no trouble. I was only waiting for you to call on me.”

Uriah had sent a letter three days previous. Written in his fairest hand, it contained a rather obsequious salutation and a schedule for his upcoming journey to London. He would have business to attend to all day upon arrival, and David should not expect him at his apartment until eight on the hour, should Mr.Copperfield desire a visit. Mr. Copperfield had indeed desired it.

“Were you? Oh, were you? I hope it is not only your gentleman’s manners that make you say that,” Uriah said with a writhe. His red eyes assessed David mistrustfully, a needle-sharp counterpoint to his humility. In fact, David had had no mind whatsoever for the book he had been reading and had found himself quite impatient for Uriah’s arrival.

They had been engaged intimately for fully three months, though in that time they had not met often, for Uriah stayed in Canterbury, while David stayed in London. Neither had they written often. 

The thing had begun when David had collided with Uriah while in a dissipation. Uriah had brought him home, and though David did not remember much of the night, he had recollected enough to be quite ashamed of his actions and to beg Uriah’s forgiveness for them. He had remembered the almost unbearable interest Uriah had held for him as David had leaned against him--how he had found himself close against Uriah’s strange, twisted skeleton of a body. Found his whole body pained and throbbing with a desire he did not understand. He had recollected how, when Uriah helped him into his bed, he had tugged Uriah down and they had kissed heatedly, as a man might kiss a woman.

On their next meeting, David had sworn aloud never again to repeat this indecency, but Uriah had entreated and cajoled, saying that David must have looked into his very heart and spied the secret of it, for he had been delighted half to perishing to be kissed so. Wouldn’t Master Copperfield try it once more? David had doubted Uriah’s earnestness. It seemed hardly likely that Uriah, who could not so much as smile, could truly be so pleased, or that anything David himself felt could strike an equal and answering spark in Uriah’s obscure soul. He had doubted Uriah’s motives, wondered at his true feelings. Yet David had never before in all his life refused Uriah any request, even when he wanted to. Now, when he did not want to, it was hardly likely he would prevail, was it? Uriah had insisted he loved it, insisted they must try more, and again David had yielded. And so one act had led to another, one meeting to another.

“Should you like a cup of coffee?” David asked. He hoped Uriah would refuse, as David longed to get to the business at hand, but he thought it only right to ask, for Uriah, whatever else he was, was a guest in David’s own house.

Uriah weighed the offer a moment, rubbing his hand under his chin. “Oh, that is kind of you, Master Copperfield. I should like a cup, certainly,” Uriah said slowly. He seated himself in a sprawling sort of way on David’s sofa. “I hope you are well.”

“Quite well,” David replied, a little formally. Though he was still nearly trembling with impatience for what was to come, wanting to touch Uriah and be touched with a fervor that frightened him, he felt bashful in conversation. He still had not found the way to speak to Uriah. He busied himself with the coffee and tried to school himself. Uriah did not aid him in his efforts, for he stared intently at David all the while. It might have been pleasant, David thought, to be so studied, if he knew better what Uriah thought of him. 

“What a day it’s been, Master Copperfield,” Uriah sighed, once he had the coffee in hand and had taken a maddeningly careful sip. David tried not to look impatient, and Uriah noticed the effort and twitched the sides of his mouth in a queer little smile. “You’ll forgive me for taking my time, I hope. I treasure up such moments as these, in your company.” He closed his eyes and released another loud sigh. David thought he was being teased—Uriah might really enjoy taking coffee with him so much as that, but more probably he enjoyed making David wait.

Seeming to forget to drink his coffee, he told David how he had been forced to chase all over for an outdated will of an old man who was becoming increasingly fond of making them and then forgetting where he had put them. He had shouted at Uriah a good deal, beat him with his newspaper, and made him run about the house in search of the document.

“He had doubtless forgotten, in his advancing age,” Uriah said, “that I am not an umble clerk any longer.” While Uriah’s partnership with Wickfield had made both David and Agnes uneasy, Wickfield having granted it due to an unfortunate dependency on drink and on Uriah himself, both of which Uriah had encouraged, Agnes had cheerfully told him that since achieving his elevation Uriah had given her father far more breathing room, and he was looking ever-better for it. Uriah was working hard, and seemed, now he had what he wanted, to have let Mr. Wickfield out from under his thumb. David thought Uriah had been a little low in his methods, though not out of line with what many businessmen must do to have affairs as they wished them. If that was the worst of what Uriah might do, David thought it could be forgiven. He had found it worryingly easy to be forgiving with Uriah, of late.

“And when I had taken pains to have a new suit made up for me,” Uriah continued, “that I might look more the proper lawyer--I don’t suppose you took notice of it?” Indeed Uriah was, David observed, wearing a new suit of clothes. It was very much in the style of its predecessor, but the cloth was much blacker and finer, and it fit him more favorably. “But I forgive him! I am accustomed to such things. It has been the way of it all my life, and ever it shall be,” he said, setting the cup down and hugging his knees.

“The suit looks well on you,” David said. Uriah thanked him for this, with what seemed to David to be a touch of irony. “I am sorry I did not observe it sooner,” he added, in case that was the matter. “I should have, certainly, if my mind had not been so fixed on this evening’s action.” Making himself bold, he came over to sit directly beside Uriah, and rubbed thumb and forefinger against the edge of one sleeve.

“It is fine work indeed,” David told him. 

Uriah sighed again, more softly this time, and folded David into a long-limbed clutch, his cold hand sliding up the back of David’s neck and making David shudder. David leaned up and kissed him, trying to keep quiet as he did so, but hearing himself sigh with pleasure.

“Of course, it is not so fine as this,” Uriah murmured. Uriah’s hands petted up and down David’s waistcoat, stroking the fine grain of the cloth, rubbing at the silky whirls of the quatrefoil pattern with what seemed to David excessive tenderness and attention. The look upon Uriah’s face was one of desire such as David had never seen from him before. If only the look had been for David himself, he thought, with a little spark of jealousy and displeasure. He thought it not right that Uriah should like his clothes so much better than he liked David himself. Oh, he had had compliments, and effusions, and wrings of the hand. Caresses and kisses and Uriah so terribly deep inside of him. Yet he had not had such a look like that for himself. 

“You might get one yourself, and send a stronger declaration of your station in life,” David said, a little more sharply than he intended. 

“A stronger declaration!” Uriah said, laughing silently. “Oh, Master Copperfield--” he jerked convulsively. “Only imagine me in such a thing as this, but you wear it ever so well.” His hands continued to stroke the cloth.

“Come with me now,” David said almost rudely, taking Uriah’s hand in his and all but pulling him towards his bedroom. His whole body burned for Uriah. 

Uriah always seemed to take a long, clumsy time with his clothes, as though his hands stuck to them from being so damp and clammy--as they habitually were. And perhaps they really did. Having quickly stripped himself, David watched Uriah slowly working each button out with almost comical care, tugging the neckerchief slowly, oh so slowly from around his throat, smoothing it, folding it. He spread the new suit out deliberately on David’s small round table, its long arms hanging down comically on either side. He gave no sly wink or grin, yet David thought he was engaged in a bit of comedy with this action, so exactly did it echo the way Uriah’s long limbs measured against David’s. David had observed that Uriah liked to keep his amusements private, or to share the point of the joke only after years on years of telling it. David wished Uriah would be more forthcoming, wished he might be certain Uriah liked him more.

Then Uriah joined him on the bed, at last. Their legs tangled together, Uriah’s foot stroked along the length of David’s own. Uriah’s hot mouth sucked with scandalous vigor at David’s neck while his cold hands clung ferociously.

“What do you say to my doing the honors this time? I think I’d like it quite well,” said David. The frustrations he had felt had begun to dull under the onslaught of Uriah’s attentions, but he found himself still wanting to drive out all that was secret from him in Uriah, all that laughed at him privately, and envied his waistcoat, and delayed their encounters for reasons unknown. He had felt terribly bare before Uriah when Uriah had had him, and he thought it time to turn things about.

Uriah agreed readily enough, still clutching where he could.

“And one other thing,” David said, yielding to an impulse that he feared might be a little cruel. 

He had long ago observed that Uriah largely pronounced his aitches, but let a few drop. Only where they began very certain words, not here and there, willy and nilly. Almost without effort or thought, David had cataloged them: ‘ed, ‘art, ‘ouse, and of course, ever and always, ‘umble. David had long suspected that it was a deliberate artifice. If he might take Uriah off his guard and trick him into abandoning these dramatics--if they really were such--he’d have one true secret from Uriah. He would not be party to Uriah’s jokes, would not know what Uriah thought of him, truly, but that, he would know.

“Speak a few endearments to me--call me your dear heart,” he said. He tried to smile winningly, but he could only flush with shame, for he knew he was urging Uriah to betray himself--if only a very little. 

Uriah looked, for an instant, almost frightened, which puzzled David, for he did not think Uriah could have guessed his intent, shrewd as he was. “Oh, yes--if that is what you wish,” he swallowed, “Master Copperfield--dear art.”

“Just so,’ David said, and kissed him.

On their last meeting, Uriah had made such an affair of taking him that David had little doubt of how it might be done.

Upon working one slicked finger in, though, he found that Uriah’s body seemed to resist the act more than his own had. It had almost frightened David how readily his own body and soul had welcomed such perversity, how naturally he had opened to it and loved it. With Uriah, it was not so easy. His body felt narrow and tight and refusing. He would sometimes twist a little, and breathe sharply, but he was otherwise silent. David again observed what seemed almost to be fear in him.

“Is it that you don’t want to? Should you like it better if we—“ David began.

“No, no—you can’t know how I want it,” Uriah insisted. David was not sure whether to believe Uriah or not; if only everything Uriah did was not so difficult to piece out. If only David did hear a double meaning in every word, every glance. All he could do was take Uriah at his word and go on. 

David was not sure when it happened, it happened so slowly, but at length, Uriah began to enjoy it. Being able to press his fingers deep inside and bring low, soft cries from Uriah made David nearly delirious. It was better than handling Uriah’s cock--though he loved to see how Uriah reacted to that sort of touch, this action seemed to give Uriah a different, more profound sort of pleasure. David began to draw his fingers out, but Uriah protested.

“A little longer first,” Uriah begged, grabbing the bedclothes in his long hands and shuddering. “I must rely on you to make it last,” Uriah whispered, “as you know I long for.” 

David did not know what, if anything, Uriah longed for. He did not know, the Devil confound Uriah! But he could know one thing. “Remember, Uriah, what you were to call me?” He asked softly, pressing inside Uriah with his fingers. 

“My dear heart,” Uriah replied biting at the sheets and writhing as though he were suffering. There it was then. Uriah habitually put on an act, and now he had forgotten to do it. He wondered why--why Uriah felt he must speak that way, when it wasn’t natural to him. He wondered if he was really Uriah’s “dear heart”--if all of Uriah’s deceptions had deserted him, or only that one. 

“Once more? For I do like to hear you say such things,” David said, after a while longer of touching him. And he truly did like it. The endearment had served its purpose, yet he still wanted to hear it.

Uriah said nothing in reply for a little while. “Only it’s hard,” Uriah muttered at last, “when the thing is too true.” 

David flushed with unexpected pleasure. He had always felt that there was nothing Uriah would not say in an instant if it would serve him in the slightest. He would not have asked if he did not think that the endearment would have meant little to Uriah to say. This, then, was a great, wonderful shock. Could Uriah really feel so tender for him that he could hardly speak it?

“And when I fear you don’t really like me so well as I like you,” Uriah went on in a furious mutter, glaring at him with a kind of reproachful defiance. “When I wonder, upon each visit I make to you, if it’s the last time I’ll ever have you. I have tried to call you as you ask, but it is too hard, and every time harder. You are wringing me like a rag today, body and soul, every way you know how! It's like you to do it. You always want to over-master everybody with your charm, which I des-say is considerable. I forgive you, and hope you don't think I speak too harshly now, but I must beg you, Copperfield, not to ask it of me another time unless you love me. I am sorry, but I must beg you to refrain from it.”

It dawned on David then that since they had begun their intimacies, he had put such effort towards piecing out Uriah’s feelings that he had forgotten to examine what he felt himself. He had labored to understand Uriah better, but he had not thought why he wanted to know. He had not looked deeply into what had come before or could come after. And he had not been particularly kind. 

“I will not,” he promised gravely, stroking a hand through Uriah’s short hair, “unless I love you.” 

His heart pounding hard, he shifted them so Uriah lay on his side, wrapped his arms around him, and then and carefully guided and pressed himself into the tight ring that he had worked to readiness with his fingers. Uriah’s body felt thin and sharp in his arms, a curious counterpoint to the silken iron inside him.

“Uriah,” he gasped.

“Copperfield--” Uriah whispered back, and David thrilled at the way Uriah said it--not simply to enjoy the sound of David’s name, as David had done with Uriah’s, but as if they were about to begin a hushed conversation. As if he was recalling David to wakefulness, gently, in the night, to tell him news of great import. But when David thrust into him, holding Uriah a little too tightly, Uriah said no more.

Uriah began moving hungrily and mindlessly against David, letting out soft, huffing noises like nothing David had heard from him before. His mouth began to form shapes, as though he was saying words but swallowing the sound. The sight of Uriah in such a state made David swell nearly to the point where the wonderful ring around his cock became painful.

David knew what he wanted, and that he wanted it deeply. He wanted Uriah to dote on him, wanted Uriah to speak to him of all he thought and knew. All that made him laugh, all that made him angry. He wanted deep-of-the-night whispers, he wanted letters, he wanted Uriah in his apartment night and day and always. And he knew now what it meant that he did. 

“Once more,” David whispered. “It is hard to ask,” he said breathlessly. “You are right, it is hard to say a thing that is too true.”

“Oh, Copperfield--my art, my dear art,” Uriah gasped, arching against him, and David realized it flowed so fast from Uriah's lips because he had been saying it again and again already, without sound, and only now spoke it. 

David’s chest seized violently. This was surely Uriah as he was without all the little tricks he had found to protect himself. As he had spoken as a child, before he learned to speak properly, and then not to speak so properly as that. Uriah was as twisted a knot of sincerity and falsehood as that of King Gordius, and for the first time since David had known him, he had let himself be cut. It was wonderful and terrible all at once. David’s sight went blank, and he reached his peak before he even knew he was approaching it, reeling with nerves and tenderness. 

Uriah finished too, clutching his own cock in his fist ruthlessly hard, sobbing into the bedclothes, turning his face away from David and into them. David had never seen Uriah so overcome as that. 

When they had pulled themselves apart, Uriah slowly turned himself to face David. David was aware that they now tread on unfamiliar ground. He did not know what to expect from Uriah, now they had crossed that bridge together. Yet as Uriah reached out to stroke David’s curls, Uriah’s face bore an expression that was not at all unfamiliar to David. He had seen him wear it not an hour previous.

David had, he thought, been quite a fool to be jealous of his own waistcoat, after all.


End file.
